


Expansive Horizons

by Scavenger98



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Not Canon Compliant, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-14
Updated: 2015-12-28
Packaged: 2018-04-26 10:32:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 20,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5001343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scavenger98/pseuds/Scavenger98
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Following the successful live capture of Annie Leonhardt, the Scouting Legion turns its gaze inward, to find the other two shifters among them. But their victory will be short-lived; their enemies are wily and fate is cruel.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Trust, Hopes, and the Dashing of Both

**Author's Note:**

> This first chapter was originally published as a one-shot on FF.net, so it may have a slightly different feel to it than the rest of the story.

Eren had looked on in swiftly increasing panic as the scene unfolded. Annie had refused to come down the stairs. Annie who he’d trusted. He and Armin had pleaded. She had moved to bite her finger and suddenly everything went off of the thin edge into the pit of Hell.

He’d taken one solitary, dumbstruck step as Scouts tackled her, felt a protectiveness he hadn’t known he possessed for her. But then she flicked her finger, and something snapped.

He hadn’t resisted, fought, screamed, or done anything as Mikasa pulled him and Armin down the stairs like so much training gear. He moved hollowly, the image of an enormous female nightmare rising in the midst of a blood-soaked sunset glued behind his eyelids. He should have been feeling the usual anger, a surge of adrenaline that would divide the world neatly between him and his enemies. He _should_ have been enraged.

But against all logic he wasn’t. All he could feel was the crushing emptiness of loss. Something was gone. He tried to focus; he had an enemy to fight, but first he had to protect his family. As he bit his hand, trying to shift, he searched for his motivation. _‘Capture the traitor. Attack the Female Titan. Protect Armin and Mikasa from… Annie? No, no, not… Just…’_ Somehow his mind wasn’t accepting his goals. He couldn’t reconcile his target with its face. The emptiness persisted. What the hell was this hollow feeling? What had he lost? And why did it hurt so damn much to bite his hand?

Mikasa and Armin ran off to buy him time and a surge of self-loathing built upon the black hole that had swallowed his anger before it could form. It had been growing ever since they’d started this operation, a hollow, illogical disbelief. Annie couldn’t be an enemy. She was a bit of a hard-ass and sort of selfish, but she was a good person at heart, he was sure of it. So how could she have done all of this? She couldn’t possibly justify it!

And then he knew what was gone. He’d been truly betrayed. By a comrade, and worse, a friend. He knew what she had taken. It had budged from its spot when Hannes pulled him away with his mother, very nearly been lost when he saw his squad-mates die like ants. His already battered trust was just a hollow space now. Finally, his mind caught up with reality and his rage knew where to go. It wasn’t some faceless, traitorous titan he had to attack; it was Annie.

He had to stop her. No matter what it took.

 

**0(O)0**

 

The first time she’d gone after Eren, Annie had been cautiously hopeful, and a bit exhilarated. It was well buried, but she did feel some small guilt for the latter. She was far too focused to acknowledge it, but it was there.

She knew that Eren would be mad at first. In fact, she knew for a fact he would be livid. But if she could just get him away from the Legion, if she could just explain it all to him, _maybe_ he would understand. Once he knew, he might even forgive them… eventually. Nothing but the setting would change; she would be home, and one way or another, everyone she cared about would be safe.

But as she’d fought through soldier after soldier, and her own exasperation at Reiner being a prick, her hope had begun to slip. She made it look easy, and at first it was almost hilariously so, but plowing through the Scouting Legion was time-consuming, and she could only keep a shift going for so long. The trap hadn’t exactly helped. She was still wondering where in the blood-soaked hell they had gotten so many harpoon launchers.

Killing the elite squad was honestly the most difficult part of the whole mission, but that wasn’t really saying much. Their skill caught her off guard, and in the end, they were the ones who truly screwed her. Eren getting off a shift was just annoying, but she could have handled him decently well at full strength.

But she was not at her best: she was armless and half-blind. He probably could have won if he’d fought smart, but he was too angry to do it, let alone recognize her before she finally got fed up and ended it, disappointed in all honesty. She hadn’t quite realized it at the time, but she was already screwed. Between killing the elite squad and having to fight Eren handicapped, she’d lost more than enough time for Captain Levi to hand her one of the most decisive defeats of her short life.

This time was different. There was no seemingly endless army of cannon fodder to slog through, and no terrifyingly fast midget to combat, but even at full strength, she knew she couldn’t win. Between Eren actually thinking, and the full force of the Scouting Legion restricting her movements, she was unequivocally screwed. She’d failed her comrades, failed Eren, and failed her father.

She wasn’t about to give up lightly, but she was quickly learning that a battle of attrition with Eren was a losing one. He didn’t seem to understand the simple concept of giving up. This time, he wasn’t just angry; he was focused. And as he kept getting up from wound after crippling wound, she knew he wasn’t going to stop until she did; that there would be no victory here.

In the face of an inexorable, flaming monster, she finally gave into the instincts that screamed for her to run. Her fingers hardened and she slammed them into the wall, disregarding the loss of her leg as Eren tried to stop her. She might be able to make it, if she could just reach the top.

Then blood squirted, blades glinted in the sun, and phantom pain replaced her fingers. Her eyes leaked tears as she felt gravity pulling her through the air. Mikasa’s eyes had a habit of communicating the emotions the rest of her face didn’t, but for once her feelings were plain to see; calm, smug, almost carefree _triumph_. Whatever strange competition she had created in her mind, Mikasa had finally and unequivocally won. She savored the hard-won victory like a sweet wine.

Against her vehement wishes, Annie obeyed Mikasa’s calm words and fell, all the way down to the hard, sun-warmed ground. The pain of impact was dull and immaterial through her titan body, her despair already starting to degrade her connection to its nerves. An angry rumbling growl accompanied Eren as he half limped, half bounded over, his foot still not quite regenerated. Even as she tried to move, stand, run, _anything_ , he pinned her enormous shell to the ground, heavy breath and skin burning against her giant form. His teeth pierced the nape of its neck and Annie felt a cool breeze brush against her tear-streaked face. She should have been resisting, hiding, trying to run, but for a crucial moment, she didn’t. As he reached down and pulled her out, the world abruptly shrunk down to its normal scale and she opened her eyes.

The first things she saw were Eren’s irises; his gaze was angry liquid green fire, far brighter, and no less focused than his human eyes. The rest of his face was a patchwork of rapidly evaporating blood and burning wounds, healing far faster than should have been possible on that scale. He glared down at her, and she felt his grip trembling, just barely loose enough that she wasn’t crushed into a bloody smear on his palm. The accusation and betrayal in the gaze was palpable and she wondered why he hadn’t just killed her already.

Eren’s jaws parted and an unearthly, raging roar left them, sending her hair whipping back. Her eyes shot wide and finally, her terror broke, her mind coming full circle. Eren’s lipless mouth wasn’t suited for words, but it got across the anguished, enraged, accusatory question just fine: **‘Why?’**

 

**0(O)0**

 

It was strange, Hanji considered, having an enemy who could change their face. In the cumulative hour or so that she’d interacted with Annie Leonhardt, the blonde had mostly been a Titan: a giant, inhuman and undeniably evil juggernaut tearing through her comrades like so many irritating cobwebs. Her skinless, intimidating form had been easy to detach and think clinically of, an adversary worthy of nothing but anger, calculation, and many, many explosively propelled wires.

This girl whom Hanji now confronted was a different beast altogether, though a beast nonetheless. She was small, almost fragile-looking despite how dangerous she was. Tear streaks had been plain on her skin when the legionnaires brought her in, even with the scars of titan integration still marring her face. Her eyes had been blank like glassy blue marbles.

Beyond the similarities in facial structure and hair color, it was hard to reconcile the girl with the monster. That was making cutting through her shoulder with a wood-saw a much more guilty exercise than the Scouting Legion’s resident mad scientist had anticipated.

Like a dam finally giving way, a long-suppressed scream of agony escaped Annie’s mouth and Hanji stopped, wrenching the jagged instrument out of her with a loud crunching **squish** that she usually would have found satisfying. She bent down and looked directly at the girl’s thoroughly battered face, expression in its usual cheerful and slightly unhinged smile, despite her misgivings.

“If you tell me who sent you, I can stop for the day.” Annie’s eyes held nothing but seething hatred as she met the older woman’s gaze. The blonde didn’t make any quips or insult her. She just stared back; for a moment, the hiss of steam rising from her numerous wounds became the only sound in the room.

Hanji sighed exasperatedly and picked up a crowbar from her small table. She was getting nowhere and learning nothing, which always left her annoyed. Upside: that anger made the torture easier.

 

**0(O)0**

 

Since the day he’d first sparred with her, Eren had always thought of Annie as a strong person. Whether in terms of mentality, or martial arts, he’d seen in her a person head and shoulders above himself and most others he’d met, someone he would never have to hold back with. Her stoicism had made her a challenge, and he’d come to respect her for the small bits of true personality that had occasionally shone through her cold, disinterested facade.

Or maybe it was because she’d beaten the shit out of him constantly. In the end, it was neither here nor there, because this person before him was just about as far from impressive as a human could get.

Eren’s former teacher and friend was splayed out on the floor of a stone cell, with her wrists and ankles chained by thick manacles. She’d been stripped of her boots, military jacket, and harness and looked generally as though she’d been put through a meat grinder. Evidently, Hanji had not been keen on a humane interrogation.

“Annie.” No response. Eren turned to his friends. Mikasa just shrugged and then returned her glare to the grimy wall. She’d been acting strangely ever since he’d decided to go down to the cell. Armin was regarding Annie with a carefully professional expression, the sort he adopted when he was analyzing something and couldn’t find a solution. If her sorry state made him feel anything, he kept it to himself.

“Annie!” Eren’s shout finally got her to raise her head. For a second, their eyes met. Her apathetic stare was lacking its usual sharp edge. Eren’s fists clenched; he couldn’t stand those eyes. The deep blue irises held nothing but sarcastic defeat; angry, but without any drive. Something in him snapped. “God fucking dammit!”

Even he didn’t really see his punch coming. It connected squarely with her face, re-breaking her recently healed nose. On his knees in front of her, he used his other hand to pin her down by the neck and drew back for another punch. Some part of his brain heard Armin gasp and take a step forward, but Mikasa held him back with a strong grip, the blank apathy not budging from her face.

Eren was too pissed off to especially care. He was angry that she’d killed Levi’s squad. He was angry that she’d tried to kidnap him. He was absolutely _livid_ that she’d been a traitor in the first place. Beating her in Stohess had taken the edge off of his compounded rage, but now, with her in front of him, it exploded outward.

**KRACK!** “You’ve fucking given up, haven’t you?”

**KRACK!** “You think you can just surrender like that after everything you’ve done, after all the _people_ you killed, that you betrayed?! You think you have the right?!” His next blow slammed into her ribs.

“You’re stronger than this! Anyone who could do what you’ve done must be stronger than fucking _this_!”

Eren was breathing heavily, more from his emotions than the actual beating. Annie turned her head and spat out a bloody tooth before leveling the same emotionless glare on Eren. His enraged advance had put them almost nose-to-nose. The skin around one of her eyes was already starting to swell and even more blood was trailing from her mouth. His angry expression slipped into a dead frown as he stumbled back into a standing lean against the opposite wall.

It was Armin who finally spoke up, voice shaking as he broke the empty silence. “Annie… You have to talk to us. They’ll kill you if you don’t.” For a moment it seemed as though Annie might react, her mouth opening slightly and her eyes focusing on Armin, but the expression passed just as fast as it had come. Her voice was gravely and hoarse from too much screaming, as she turned her head to Armin and Mikasa.

“They’ll kill me no matter what I do. My last act won’t be to betray my home.” Then she smirked, which was quite creepy with her bruised and bloodied countenance. “Honestly, I don’t even know why _she’s_ here. I never took you for one to taunt your prey once it was dead, Ackerman.”

Mikasa’s eyes narrowed and her lips pursed, but she didn’t make any move to retaliate. Eren looked back and forth between the two girls, eyes narrowed. What had he been missing between them? It was something, clearly.

Finally, his eyes came back to Annie, whose gaze was downcast. Her lips were quirked in a sad shadow of a smile, eyes hooded and shadowed by her blood-caked bangs. “I almost had you. You might have lived if the short bastard hadn’t turned up.” She looked back up and Eren stared into the eyes of something different; something terrified, angry, and hopeless. “They’ll play nice for now… You’re useful, but so are horses and that doesn’t stop people from putting them down when they aren’t.”

Eren glared back at her and Mikasa’s grip on Armin’s arm tightened to painful strength, but despite the anger and doubt those words had dug up, very little happened.

Armin was smart enough to have come to that conclusion a while ago. He wasn’t the idea guy for nothing; he’d long since planned for such an eventuality. Considering the moves already made against Eren by the Military Police, someone in power would be after them soon, with or against the Scouting Legion.

For all his dense single-mindedness, Eren wasn’t an idiot, and he certainly wasn’t blindly trusting. This latest betrayal had assuredly washed him clean of that last bit of mental baby fat. One of his best friends had turned out to be a mass-murdering enemy combatant; it wasn’t a fact he’d be forgetting any time soon.

Mikasa had never liked Annie in the first place and took exception to the idea that she couldn’t protect Eren, even if she’d failed to do so once already. Even if she wasn’t there, there were hundreds of others that would need to be outsmarted or outgunned to take him away. It wasn’t about to happen.

“I’ve seen enough. We’re going.” Without another word, Mikasa dragged Armin out of the cell and Eren moved to follow. As he neared the door, he cast a look back at Annie: his enemy, teacher, and distant, sarcastic, betraying asshole of a friend. She looked back at him, and for a moment, he thought he might have seen the ghost of a hopeful smile on her face. But then it was gone, like a lightning strike, and her eyes were the same dead apathetic orbs they’d always been, her lips a thin, not-quite-frowning line of soft pink skin. The door slammed behind him and he didn’t look back.


	2. Second and First Contacts

Levi and Annie sat glaring at each other, one leaning forward in a chair and the other on the floor, splayed out against the wall. If Hanji had been there, she might have made a joke about him finally being taller than someone, but thankfully, she was doing experiments with Eren that day. There was enough tension in the room without her there on top of it. They’d been in this baleful deadlock for almost fifteen minutes now while he waited for her minor wounds to repair themselves. Such situations had become the norm over the course of the past week.

Normally, neither of them was much for talking, but in this particular instance, it was Levi who broke the silence. “Hey, scum-sucker. You ever heard the legend of the first titan?” Annie continued to glare back silently, and though her position against the wall was far from imposing, she made it work.

“Well, the story goes that when the world was new and us humans were free, there was only one of you fuckers walking around. He could walk and talk just like us, but the goddesses said that we shouldn’t have to live with a thing like him. One day the piece of shit got lonely, so he decided to make more of himself out of mud.” Annie remained impassive, but Levi could tell she was listening; she was looking at him at least.

“He was a good at it, so at first, the new titans he made were friendly. But as usual, something was fucked over and they started eating people. The Goddesses tried to save us, but they couldn’t kill the titans because they hadn’t made them. So, they made the Walls, got their chosen people inside, and slammed the door in all the other poor bastards’ faces. Then they strapped the first titan to the top of a mountain. Every day, a giant eagle would come to tear the fucker apart. By the next morning, he’d be regenerated and the eagle would come to rip him to shreds again.”

“Do you actually have a point, or is this some new kind of torture?” Levi sat forward in his seat and tilted his head, looking at the wall as though the blonde on the floor didn’t have even the minimal portion of his attention.

“No, I was just noticing that your regeneration is taking longer than before.” Annie’s eyes hardened and she looked up.

“Yeah, well, arms and legs, who’d have thought?”

But even taking the severity of her injuries into account, Annie had to admit that the bastard had a point. She had lost limbs before, when her father had taught her. Never all four like this, but it wasn’t an altogether new experience, and they’d never taken longer than a day to come back. But judging by the visits she had gotten and her sleep cycle, it had been almost two now. Her hands were just starting to reappear.

Levi stood, making a conscious effort not to wince at the pressure now on his bandaged ankle. He took a moment to study his torture options: a crowbar, a pair of pliers, a cleaver, a small clamp and a filleting knife. It wasn’t exactly an ideal setup, but between him and Hanji, they’d made it work. He’d considered bringing the saw along, but Hanji had warned against it; “too much blood, not enough versatility.” Finally, he settled on the crowbar and turned back to his subject.

“I’d say you’re ready for more, assuming you still won’t talk.” She glared back, but didn’t say anything. It was answer enough for him.

With a quick draw back, the metal instrument hit home, slamming hard into Annie’s skull. For a second, her head lolled back and her vision swam before she managed to snatch back her consciousness. A loud, pained moan escaped her before turning into a soft, throaty chuckle.

“Do you really think… that this is going to make me tell you anything?” Levi’s frown deepened slightly; according to Hanji, not a single word had escaped the girl’s lips during the whole first three days of her interrogation. She might have been slipping. Then again, maybe she’d long since slipped.

“Just… out of curiosity, did you know them very well?” His grip around the crowbar tightened and once again it came crashing down, this time taking her in the ribs. She groaned, but the smile was back even faster than before. Her eyes were calculating, focused, and wide, like a person in the midst of a paranoid fit.

“I figured you would have. When you came after me, I thought the pretty one must have somehow unbroken her back. She must have been _begging_ for it, the way she smelled like you.” Levi thought he should have been swinging the crowbar, and he did, but it barely stopped her. She coughed some blood onto her front and plunged on, just as manic as before.

“So tell me, did the bird get the worm before she died, or were you too much of an oblivious jackass to notice?”

Finally, in that moment, he stopped caring. He didn’t care about getting information, or even keeping her alive; all he wanted was for this tiny monster to suffer. The weapon slammed into her again and her labored, mocking chuckles became strangled sounds of pain. A few teeth flew out of her mouth as another blow hit her in the jaw. It felt good, finally taking out his full frustrations, letting his pent up aggression go. Even making good on his threat and cutting her limbs off had been too calculated, too systematic, to give this sense of release.

But before too long, the rush was gone and he stopped mid-swing. Annie’s eyes were closed and her whole face was one giant bruise, but a blood-soaked smirk was playing across her swelling lips, even as she collapsed against the wall. Levi was in a daze as he carefully packed up his instruments and walked out of the room, slamming the door behind him. He barely even registered the salute his soldiers threw him as he stalked away as best he could. He needed to be alone.

 

**0(O)0**

 

Eren didn’t remember how he’d gotten in his house. It was strange; he could have sworn the place had been destroyed, crushed by something. He closed his eyes, trying to remember…

_Those off-white teeth glinting in the early sun, and blood falling everywhere like rain._

Of course, how had he forgotten? He wasn’t in the house; it was smashed beside him under a giant boulder, a part of the very same wall that should have prevented this tragedy. His mother was trapped under the debris, Hannes was a few steps to her right and a giant lipless Titan stood over the scene, eternal smile just as terrifying as the day he’d seen it.

“Jeez, this is depressing. First you get stuck here, then the courtroom, and now those stairs. And you wonder why we’re so uncooperative.” Eren whirled and saw himself: significantly shorter and about five years younger, but him just the same, looking down at their mother with a sort of detached displeasure. Mikasa stood silently to the side, similarly regressed, and just as deadpan. How had he gotten here? He remembered shifting, and feeling stranger than usual. Hanji had told him something about height and that he should try to shift again…

“What’s going on?” Considering the circumstances, Eren should have been significantly less calm than he was, but for some reason the strangeness had flowed through his mind like a quiet stream. His mother spoke this time.

“It’s been several years since we met you, but you only just acknowledged our existence. Really, it’s quite depressing being ignored by yourself.”

“Why are you…?” He stopped short, relaxing a bit as the most probable justifications for his position hit him.

“Oh, wait, I’m dreaming, aren’t I?” A sort of annoyance passed through his mind, but it was more like he’d been told he was feeling it than actually doing so.

“Sort of. We’re not exactly sure how this works either.” Hannes had spoken this time. “We just thought it was time for us to touch base. After all, we have to live with each other.”

“Wait, give me a second…” He did his best to channel Armin, bringing his hand to his chin and frowning contemplatively. “We met a long time ago, but I’ve only gotten to know you recently. You’re uncooperative… Are you my Titan?” Hannes’ eyes widened, and for a second he seemed at a loss for words.

“Well… yes, I suppose that would be a pretty good way of looking at it.” Eren frowned.

“So it was you who went on that rampage the first time I shifted, and attacked Mikasa when I tried to lift the boulder.”

A sigh filtered down the steps of a tunnel and Eren stood between Armin and Mikasa. Annie turned a disappointed look on him, eyes hooded, mouth downturned just slightly. “It’s not that simple, you suicidal idiot.” Mikasa put a hand on his shoulder, expression tense and restrained.

“Like we said, we don’t know much more than you, but from what we can tell, we’re dependent on you for our actions.” Armin spoke this time, a genuine smile sitting awkwardly upon his face.

“We’re a reflection of your own will and drive. When you tried to lift that boulder, you hadn’t accepted us and fought our presence, so we fought against you. The strong one was just in the crossfire.”

Annie still stood at the top of the stairs, smiling slightly as though he’d finally managed to pull off a challenging move. “But you accepted that we are a part of you, and now we can fight together. It’s why we managed to beat the traitor. Now that we are at peace, you can think.”

The scene shifted again and they were back next to the house. Eren’s frown deepened; this time, his annoyance was far more visceral. “Why do you keep taking me to such depressing places? Why can’t we go somewhere happy?” Mikasa walked over, looking much smaller than she’d seemed at that age, shaking her head slightly.

“You exist here.”

The tunnel again: Annie glared down the stairs, obviously perturbed by his thick-headedness. “We can’t take you anywhere; we reflect you. And you choose to dwell on these times, to live your life through them.” Mikasa looked him in the eye, her grip tightening on his arm.

“If you could just let go of them, you could be free; we could accomplish our goals if you would just forget the past and focus on the future.”

But despite the pleading note of the thing’s words, Eren shook his head vehemently, mouth set in a frown. “No. No, if I do that I’ll forget what drives me. I need to keep that, otherwise, what am I even trying to do?” Annie smiled sadly down at him, but Eren didn’t believe it. As the sun set her hair ablaze and silhouetted her expression, he could see the ghost of something that a more descriptively inclined person might term perturbed disappointment.

“That sounded almost intelligent. Maybe you _have_ learned something.” She didn’t sound convinced.

Once again, he was left with a curious sense of whiplash as the scene changed without him even really realizing it. His mother’s eyes gazed tiredly up from beneath the ruins of his house and he felt the world around him fading, disappearing from his mind.

“You have to go now. We’ll see you again soon…”

 

**0(O)0**

 

            Eren couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment he had stopped dreaming, and for a moment, he thought he’d been taken somewhere new: dark and shapeless. But as he became conscious of his own wakefulness, he heard the sound of hushed voices. They were familiar, a man and a woman. They were talking in hushed whispers, though the woman’s understanding of “whisper” seemed to be far looser than the man’s.

“We can’t count any of them out. We don’t know their motivations and we don’t know their endgame; I can’t deduce something like this with so little evidence. Hell, even the idea that they’re part of the 104th is at best an inference.” Hanji’s voice lacked its usual enthusiasm. She sounded hesitant, worried even. When spoken with her voice, it sounded almost unnatural.

“Be that as it may, it’s the best lead we’ve been able to find. Have you talked to Arlert?” Commander Irwin was just as calm as usual. But Eren could detect something under the surface, a tension and weariness belied by his stoic tone. He couldn’t blame the man. Nobody in the Legion had come out of these last two missions without some fresh mental scars. Even someone like Irwin had to break at some point.

Hanji sighed; Eren could practically hear the shrug in her voice. “I tried, but he said he didn’t want to jump the gun until he knew more. Wants to be absolutely sure.”

“He has too little faith in his intelligence. I’ll talk to him.” Eren frowned at the statement and the conversation ended abruptly. A few footsteps followed and he was forced from his mock-sleep by a sharp pinching on his ear.

“Ooh, he’s pretending to be asleep! He’s like a little kid! That’s so cute!” Eren shot up in bed, eyes flying open.

“Agh! What the hell, Hanji!” The seemingly bipolar woman was grinning at him from the side of the bed. Someone had moved him to the infirmary. His sudden rising made him dizzy, and he fell back to his pillow as the room swam around him, grasping his ear where she had pinched it.

“Be careful, Jaeger, you had a shifting accident. We had to cut you out of your Titan form and bring you here.”

Eren frowned as his sense of balance returned, sitting up slowly to avoid further problems. He could have sworn he’d dreamed about something important… right, his Titan. In retrospect, the whole thing had been extremely weird. A lot of it didn’t make much sense. It had seemed to at the time…

“Eren, is there something on your mind?” He shook his head and looked over at Irwin, clearing his expression as best he could.

“No, sir, I…” For a moment, he thought about what he should say next; what would they _expect_ him to say?

“I’m just a bit frustrated with the test’s failure, that’s all.” He did his best to seem more irritated than confused, but he’d never been a very good actor. He quickly decided to change the subject.

“Where are the others?” The commander sent Hanji a quick glance before turning back to Eren.

“The Legion is undergoing practice exercises for the time being… How much of our conversation did you hear?”

Eren frowned angrily, looking down at his lap before meeting Irwin’s eyes. “Just the last bit sir. I’m assuming you were talking about the Armored and Colossal Titans.”

The blonde commander took a moment before nodding. “Based on the identity of the Female Type, we’ve assumed that the other two infiltrated the same way. Do you have any thoughts?” Eren’s blood boiled, but he put his slowly blossoming self-control to good use and schooled his features into something resembling calm. The idea that there were two more traitors among his friends was vinegar poured on his already eviscerated trust.

“No sir, none that I can think of. Like you said, Armin is a better person to talk to about things like this.” Irwin nodded, face just as impassive as ever.

“I’ll take that under consideration. For the time being, I suggest you focus on recovering your strength, Eren; you have more tests tomorrow.” He turned and walked brusquely out of the room. Hanji stayed where she was, only turning to pull up a chair, and waiting until they heard the door close.

“So, Eren, do you have any recollection of what happened?” He shook his head; focus immediately upon his somewhat insane superior. She explained briefly how his Titan form had deteriorated over the course of multiple shifts in rapid succession. She also explained how he’d been harder to remove every time. His final transformation had been a complete failure, barely ten meters and incomplete. The skeleton had vanished from the parade ground within fifteen minutes.

“Regardless of all that, you weren’t able to use the hardening ability, so until we can think of another way to close the gate, it would seem that Wall Maria is going to stay open. On the bright side, we’re fairly certain that your endurance can be increased through training.”

Eren frowned, still bothered by something. “How long was I out after the third test?” Hanji’s smile fell a bit, but it was still there.

“A little more than a day. Considering the most often we’ve seen a person change successfully is twice in a day, I think we should dial back on the tests and keep that as a maximum.”

Eren nodded and lay back down. Now that he had stopped to think clearly, even that small exercise was wearing him down. _‘I wonder if my healing abilities are affected by how tired I am… Eh, not important right now. Rest.’_ He pushed his back onto the mattress again and laid his head on the pillow, sighing again, like a pot letting off steam.

“Hey, Eren. Do you want me to close the curtains?” He frowned, eyes drooping shut. “No, leave ‘em open. The sun feels nice.” She nodded and stood up to leave. Eren smiled softly at the warm rays on his face and drifted back into a dreamless slumber. It was the last good rest he’d be getting for quite some time.

 


	3. Flipped Scripts

            The sun-dappled clearing is usually a place of diligent focus, and hard work. Anger had once existed there as well, but a broken leg had washed most of it away quite some time ago. She usually feels safe there, tucked away from everything.

Usually being the operative word. Visits always put her on edge.

“You have no idea of the importance of your existence. I know I’ve said it before, but it’s true.” The woman has that look in her not-quite-brown eyes; the look she always seems to get when she talks about Annie’s purpose. Her long, dark hair is down for once, draping over the shoulders of her perfectly clean black dress and the polished silver chain around her neck. Her teeth are unsettlingly white. “We’ve waited so long, for you and the others. The criteria were so specific, so rare. We expected one, _hoped_ for two… But four of you, we never even dared to contemplate!”

She kneels down, eyes level with Annie’s, so earnestly focused that the girl almost expresses the discomfort she’s feeling. “You four will be our hammer on the anvil. And when you fall, they will be forced to come forward. Through your brave sacrifices, we will retake what is ours.”

 

**0(O)0**

 

How long had she been in this dark cell? It had to have been three days at the very least. The first night, she'd fallen asleep slowly, manacled to the floor and crying like some kind of infant. When she woke up, the woman with glasses had been there with her fake smile, and her sharp metal objects, ready to kick off the torture. Not long after that, Eren, Armin, and Mikasa had come to see her. She’d fallen asleep some time later, maybe an hour? When she woke up again, that terrifying midget with the dead eyes had walked in and very slowly taken her limbs, just as intensely casual as when he had threatened to do so in that forest. He hadn’t once shown a single emotion, no matter how much she screamed.

She didn’t remember much after that; her consciousness had been variable at best. She thought that the torture must have gone on for a while. It might have been one horrible day, or possibly a whole week; she blacked out too often to be sure, or (at the time) care. But now here she was, groggily returning to consciousness, and her awakening thoughts were far too curious for the good of her returning headache.

She looked blankly up at the ceiling, head resting against the wall she was forced to sit against. Her recently regrown hands were once again firmly restrained by manacles. She hadn’t eaten since she was captured, though every now and then she had been given a small drink of water, and the chance to relieve herself (oh what fun that had been). For what must have been the thousandth time since her capture, she strained her arms against their metal bonds, and felt the dull, far-away pain that accompanied the action. Pain, as though she needed more of that.

            With a conscious effort of her barely-functioning mind, she stopped the movement and closed her eyes, trying to collect her thoughts into something coherent. She started by going over what she knew.

_‘It’s been a good amount of time with no word from the others. They must be under surveillance.’_ Doubtless, with her identity confirmed, the whole 104 th had been thrown into suspicion. Hell, for all she knew her accomplices were already compromised. With Armin around to play detective, it was far from impossible. Regardless of whether they were captured or lying low, there would be no help from Reiner or Bertolt. She would have to get this particular ball rolling by herself.

_‘Alright then; possible avenues of escape?’_ She was sure that she had gone through them at some point,but between the excruciating pain of torture, and the pitch-black unconsciousness that followed, she hadn’t been given a lot of time to think straight. She felt marginally better, so she could reasonably assume that no one had entered her cell in at least the last few hours.

_‘I could probably get out of these cuffs if I broke my thumbs, but with the state I’m in they probably wouldn’t heal before I needed them again, and that still leaves my legs. I can’t shift out of these things; there isn’t enough space and I don’t have the energy for it…’_

            She contemplated for a moment, until the thought came to her swiftly out of a memory, old and happily buried. It was such a beautiful blue. Maybe dad would let her have a day off if she made him something pretty; something they could both be proud of.

            _The dark purple of crystalized blood as they were forced to saw her hand off at the wrist and pain, pain, pain…_

            Her eyes turned to one of her restrained hands and she momentarily grappled with herself. On the one hand, a crystal weapon would cut through her bonds pretty quickly, and she didn’t see any other way out of them. On the other, she was already in remarkably bad shape; probably the worst she’d ever been in. Messing up her body even _more_ wasn’t a concept she enjoyed contemplating.

            _‘I want you to promise me that you will never use this ability on your body again, Annie. Give me your word, as a warrior, as my daughter.’_

            But she’d been captured. If she couldn’t get out, both she and her father were dead anyway, so he’d probably understand if she went back on her word just this once. She gritted her teeth and did her best to sit up a little straighter, trying to breathe evenly, but her heart rate seemed determined to speed up whether she liked it or not. She gazed balefully down at her left hand. It would have to be the one to go; she was better with her right.

            Steeling herself against the screaming rebellion her body was about to commit, Annie closed her eyes and wrenched her arm back sharply. By some small miracle, she managed to hold in her screams as her skin and bones gave way with a loud **KRACK.**

 

**0(O)0**

            She picks at her food listlessly, not daring to look at him. She doesn’t deserve to. As usual, dinner has been a silent affair, punctuated by the **click** of carved wood on ceramic bowls, and the strange mishmash of sounds that comprise chewing. There’s a strangely different kind of **click** as he puts his spoon down; wooden spoon on wooden tabletop. He rubbs the bridge of his nose as though it will help the weariness he feels.

            “Annie.” She looks up sharply at the sudden noise. Outside, the crickets are chirping. She can’t bring herself to meet the eyes she inherited, so instead, she tries for a middle ground and looks in the general vicinity of his neck. He sighs; the weight of too many thoughts apparent on his already lined face. That too is her fault, though he’ll never say it to her. She knows it, and in the end, that means infinitely more than whatever he thinks or says, let alone the truth.

            “I don’t blame you, you know.”

_‘Liar.’_ But she stays silent and brings her spoon to her lips, determined to ignore whatever preachy excuse he will inevitably build to.

“I haven’t given you much of a childhood, I know that and it pains me… But if anything, what you did is proof that I made the right choice.” The spoon stops halfway back to the bowl.

“What?” She honestly has no idea how to respond to that. It was the last thing she’d expected to hear.

“To a warrior, all life is a challenge; a dare to be better than whatever you come across. The world is an enemy that we dedicate our lives to overcoming.” This is more along the usual lines. She’s heard variations on this speech more times than she can remember.

“You were born to that life, and I’ve done the best I can to prepare you for it. When I started training you, I put myself in the position of an obstacle for you to overcome.” He reaches down and though she can’t see it under the table, she knows he is rubbing his crippled leg, wincing.

“This is proof that you are strong, Annie. Proof that you are exactly the warrior I always hoped for. It is my failure that I was unable to challenge you, not yours.” It’s an excuse. Something in her wants to take it and absolve itself of all this guilt, but most of her is too horrified with everything in the world to believe for a second it would hold true. She pushes away her half-empty bowl and walks out the door, but no matter how far she goes, the whisper won’t leave.

_‘Monster.’_

**0(O)0**

 

            “Hey, Maeder, you hear that?” David looked up from his book and glanced at his friend.

“Yeah, I hear it. That drip’s been here for a lot longer than either of us, Martin. Calm down.” The slightly younger man pulled his weapon up on his shoulder and leaned toward the metal door of the cell, eyes narrowed.

“No, no, not that. I mean in there. It sounds like she’s hitting her cuffs together.”

            David concentrated and after a second found that yes; he actually _could_ hear some weird **clanging** noises. “She can’t move her arms that far. Maybe she’s hitting them on the floor or something?” He put his book down and stood up, hefting his gun and pressing his ear against the door to hear the sound more clearly.

It was rhythmic, a sharp metallic noise every second or two. He sighed and stepped back, punctuating the demand by slamming the butt of his gun into the door. “Hey! Keep it down in there!” The sound stopped for a second, then started again, louder this time, more urgent.

"Oy! I said to cut that damn racket out!" Down the hall, Benjamin yelled something that might have been a question, but Martin was too focused on the immediate noise to care especially. There was no pause this time; in fact the interval between hits seemed to be getting smaller. "That's it, I'm putting a stop to this."

David crossed his arms worriedly. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” His comrade glared at his belt as his fingers fumbled angrily with the key ring.

“She’s chained up; I’d be surprised if she could move more than a few centimeters out of her way.” Finally, his fingers managed to extricate the collection of small metal instruments from their bindings. It took him another few seconds to find the correct one and jam it into the lock. The heavy **thunk** of the mechanism’s inner workings sliding into place echoed hollowly down the hallway.

Benjamin arrived at the door, slowing from a fast walk. “What’s going on?” The door creaked open and as Martin crossed the threshold, the sound cut out abruptly.

“Alright, you fu-“ Something glittering and blue sprouted from his throat and David stumbled forward, his hand moving for the doorknob as Benjamin stepped back and unslung his weapon. They had to close the door, **close it now.**

He didn’t make it that far. A mangled hand, missing its middle and ring fingers in a bloody mess of loose skin slammed it wide open even as his fingers closed around thin, callous air.

She was terrifying, looking more dead than alive. Her eyes glittered a dull crystalline blue behind blood-caked bangs that might have been a pale shade of yellow at some point. Every inch of her clothing and skin was tinted red, grey, or brown with filth and shadow. But worst of all, was the hardness in her expression, the utter hatred it communicated. Martin’s limp body slid down the wall and met the floor with a soft **thunk** ; whatever had killed him was already back in the girl’s other hand.

Off balance as he was, David didn’t have time to react before he felt the sharp blue whatever-it-was slide through his skin and then between his ribs. The girl moved quickly for someone carrying several extra pounds of iron. He heard the **click** of Benjamin’s musket preparing to fire, and the loud, echoing report as he pulled the trigger. Even as his lungs filled with blood, he saw the monster stumbling back, clutching at her newest wound.

 

**0(O)0**

           

Annie could feel every cell in her body rending itself from the effort of moving at all, let alone fighting, but she ignored it. Adrenaline pumped through her veins like water through a hose and the world was a great roaring as her back made contact with the hard stone of the wall. The bullet had been slammed into one of her ribs at close range, breaking through it and into something that must have considered itself very important to be complaining that much. Blood slid down her midriff, but she ignored that too. The last soldier was advancing; she had to act fast.

            _‘Knock him off balance.’_ She shot forward, the sharp pain just below her chest almost causing her to lose what little focus she had. It was lucky her opponent wasn’t especially big; otherwise she might not have been able to take him off of his feet. With a grunt, they collided and fell.

            He hit the floor hard and she followed, bringing her weapon down with the full force of her weight behind it. Desperately, he tried to maneuver his gun between crystal death and his body. He was almost fast enough. Almost.

Slowly, the roaring died away and Annie stared down at the man. His black eyes were wide and terrified as his life drained out of him. She’d shoved her knife straight into his heart. _‘Liar. Traitor. Murderer.’_

_Anger and kicking, and yells of pain as her father’s leg snapped._ It was utterly different killing a person up close. As a titan it had felt easy, casual even, despite the satisfaction that came with winning…

            Her stomach lurched uncontrollably at the memories and she fell to her knees before throwing up onto the floor. Or at least she would have. There was nothing in her stomach to regurgitate, so all she managed to do was retch as her insides seemingly tried to tear themselves apart. All the while, she could still feel the bullet lodged in her, shifting around, grating against everything it could reach like some vengeful parasite.

            With a final cough, she finished, breathing hard and falling back against the opposite wall as she pressed her bleeding hand to her bleeding torso. She felt as though she’d climbed the better part of a sheer cliff and she wasn’t even out of the dungeon yet.

_‘He had a ring of keys. Grab them.’_ Grimacing at the taste in her mouth, she wiped her lips, turned back to the cell, and moved to the corpse she’d left just inside the door. She did her best not to look into his glassy, surprised hazel eyes as she stuffed them into her right pocket. _‘Keep going; you don’t have time for this.’_

Walking back out, her eyes came to rest on her other would-be guards. She bent down, holding back bile as she pulled her weapon free with a wet **squelch**. For a moment she thought about taking one of the muskets, but quickly discarded the idea. They were all but useless to her with just one working hand.

Finally, she turned left and right, taking stock of her options. She hadn’t been conscious when they had brought her down here. Either way looked as plausible as the other.

_‘Shit.’_ She didn’t have time to debate. Quickly, she started down the hall to her right, blood dripping from her left hand as it steamed lazily. If she were at full strength, it would have been halfway healed by then and probably wouldn’t be bleeding at all. She clutched the fingers that formed the hilt of her knife harder and kept walking.

            Stopping at the first and only turn she came to, she leaned heavily against the wall and listened for anyone approaching before looking tentatively around the bend. The hall ended in a flight of stairs. She didn’t know where it led, but considering the lack of windows so far, up probably meant out. Walking down the hall, she took the first step up the flight, only to feel a sudden sense of vertigo. Automatically, her left hand shot out to steady her, only to hit the wall hard. She yelped at the sudden agony, and very nearly fell knees-first onto the stairs.

            _‘Inhale. Exhale. Control yourself, dammit.’_ Breathing heavily, she steadied herself and walked slowly up the stairs, hoping they led toward freedom.


	4. Jumping Ship

The call came in the middle of the night and banished all hope of further rest like a strong wind sweeping away a strangely comforting fog. It wasn't anything particularly complicated, not that she had ever been capable of much more in the first place. What she had managed was roughly equivalent to a colorless signal flare. It said little more than, "I need help, this is where I am," but regardless of the message's quality, it had arrived loud and clear. They'd been hard-pressed to get out of the barracks and put on their maneuver gear without waking someone. Luckily, Connie was a heavy sleeper.

Now, the two friends ran along the inner wall of the compound, intent on their goal. Of the two of them, one was noticeably more hurried, though ironically enough, his grasp on reality was a good deal less tenuous than the other's. Bertolt's focus very nearly cost them their mission. "Wait." The tall boy almost ran into Reiner as the bulkier boy stopped short, throwing an arm out to catch him. Without another word, they ducked behind the nearest storage shed and waited.

He did his best to bring his breathing under control, watching as the two legionnaires strolled past, eyes darting across their surroundings like hungry predators. The moon was bright and the sky was cloudless. As far as the weather went, she couldn't have picked a worse night to free herself.

Finally, the soldiers rounded a bend and the two friends moved on. Their steps were measured and controlled, checked by sweeping gazes. The close call had made them cautious. Even so, despite having to slink from shadow to shadow, it was a relatively straight shot to their destination. Finally, nestled between two buildings, they found her.

She appeared to be passed out on the ground. Her eyes were squeezed tightly shut. Her clothes and face were both covered in blood, grime or some mixture of the two. Her pants and shirt were cut off at the knees and shoulders, which probably meant her limbs had been removed at some point. Ironically enough, their replacements were left cleaner than the rest of her as a result, most of them anyway. Out of all her injuries, her mangled left hand was the most obvious. Bertolt had never once seen her laid so low. It felt inherently wrong somehow.

Without a thought, he dropped down in front of her and reached out to touch her shoulder. Less than a second later, something sharp was streaking toward the underside of his chin. Her eyes were wide and panicked. Without thinking, his own hands came up and clamped down hard on her forearm, holding her back.

But rather abruptly the light faded from her eyes and she relaxed her arm, breathing heavily, and staring in a way that seemed a bit too terrified to be truly apologetic. "Sorry… Thought you were a patrol…" He brought his hand up to his neck and wiped off a bit of blood. Just a few centimeters farther and he would have been bleeding out in the dirt. He tried not to think about it, with passable success.

"What happened to your hand?" She winced, but proffered her right, palm up. The crystalline knife she'd just attempted to kill him with sat there, and squinting at the hilt in the dim moonlight, he could see…

His eyes widened. _'Oh god.'_

It was a testament to his self-control that he managed to ignore the instincts screaming for him to gather her up and run away from this place as fast as his legs could carry them. _'To conquer their enemies, warriors must first conquer themselves. Control your impulses and act as necessary.'_ With a deep breath, he stood, face set. "What do we do now?"

Reiner looked momentarily over his shoulder before turning his gaze back to the complex. "We definitely have to leave, tonight. You'll have to carry Annie, though."

Bertolt was about to agree, but suddenly, fingers slicked in warm blood wrapped around his arm and he whirled to meet an icy blue gaze.

"We're not leaving. Not without Eren."

There was a sort of venom behind the words that stung him in more ways than one. It must have shown, because even as he started to protest, he could see her gaze hardening further. "Annie, look at yourself, we have to…"

"Bertolt, I'm not about to die, and you know as well as I do what happens if we can't get him." It was in the stiffening of her jaw and the slightest change in her tone; her annoyance was verging on something more. He couldn't help but notice how much scarier she looked with blood-matted hair and sunken eyes.

Of course he knew the consequences; they had ruled his life for years now. Even with Eren, it was a long shot, but at least they wouldn't be empty-handed. At least they could finally just stop.

Reiner looked down at her, and Bertolt could have sworn there was pity behind his eyes. Maybe it was bemusement; it was difficult to be sure these days. "Right. I'll get him. You take her to that shed we passed then grab our packs. If I'm not back in twenty minutes, leave without me." He might have protested, but the blonde was already gone, off into the night.

**0(O)0**

Eren was not by any stretch of the imagination lacking for rest. He'd been sleeping for quite some time, actually, so when he heard the **chink** of metal on rock, it brought him almost immediately to the precipice of awakening. The creak of the window came next and as his brain dusted off the cobwebs, he was suddenly very aware of the fact that he was alone, with the nearest help outside of a door that was all the way across the room. He heard the telltale metallic **whoosh** of maneuver gear firing and knew without a doubt that something was wrong.

He stirred under the covers and cracked his eyes open, squinting through the darkness and finding no one. Pale moonlight was streaming through the open window, but most of the room was still in shadow. Deciding that nothing was gained by feigning sleep, he swung out of bed.

The room looked perfectly empty. He whirled on the spot, eyes penetrating the heavy shadows as they finally adjusted. "Hello?" He wondered momentarily why he had said the word, or in fact why anyone would, but discarded the thought and turned, scanning the room. _'Where are you…?'_

His unspoken question was answered rather abruptly by a light **thunk** as something hit the floor behind him. He barely had time to turn before an object collided hard with the side of his neck, just below his jaw. Even so, he managed to glimpse the face of his attacker before darkness took him. He was silhouetted on one side by the moonlight streaming through the window, but Eren would have known him anywhere. His narrowed eyes were focused, and yet his frown was somehow almost apologetic.

He hated that face with every fiber of his being, and his last thought was of how goddamn hilariously ironic this was.

_'Reiner. Of fucking course.'_

**0(O)0**

Reiner dropped to one knee as he caught his comrade's body before it could hit the floor, smiling awkwardly. "Sorry, Eren." The boy didn't respond of course; the larger boy simply felt the need to say something. He pulled his thoughts back to heel and considered how best to restrain the kid. A blow like that wouldn't keep someone like them down for more than a couple of hours, and even that was being generous.

_'I could just cut his arms and legs off…'_ Almost immediately, he discarded the idea. For one thing, it would be cruel, and for another, it would almost certainly wake him up. Reiner didn't particularly enjoy the prospect of fighting his way through the entire goddamn Survey Corps, through his comrades…

He pinched the bridge of his nose and scrunched his eyes closed, drawing a hissing breath and holding it as he brute-forced his thoughts back into position. _'No. No, you're a warrior now. Pull yourself together. Focus on the mission. They’re all relying on you…'_

It wasn't clarity that he pushed toward through the madness, but it was close enough to work for his purposes. He could ignore the nagging at the back of his mind. He had to. For his parents, Annie’s father…

_‘For Helena.’_ And at the name, the image, he felt a semblance of identity solidify.

' _Alright, then. Something durable…'_ Laying Eren carefully back on his bed, Reiner crept to the nearest cabinet and opened it, stopping short as the hinges gave just the tiniest **squeak**. Satisfied that he wasn't about to be swarmed by soldiers, he turned back to the shelves and began a brief search.

' _Let's see; empty bottles, rubbing alcohol, more bottles, bandages… Wait, bandages!'_ He quickly pulled down one of the rolls of cloth and tugged on it experimentally. _'Seems fairly strong. I suppose it'll do for now…'_ He set the roll off to the side, and frowned. _'First thing's first, though. We'll need leverage…'_ He reached into Eren's shirt and grabbed just that.

**0(O)0**

Bertolt closed the door quietly behind him and sat down on a box, gently setting down the two backpacks he'd retrieved on the floor in front of him. He glanced at Annie, met her eyes for a moment and immediately began looking at the door, the low ceiling, the floor, anywhere but his friend. She was slumped against a low stack of crates, staring at nothing in the barely-there light of the shed.

"Bertolt." Her voice was low, contemplative in that strange sort of way it got when she was bottling something up. "Sorry, again… For trying to kill you." He smiled, though not very convincingly.

"It's no problem. I understand." Her eyes were downcast now, hidden behind her bangs. He didn't think he'd seen her hair down since they'd joined the 104th. It might have been nice if it weren't clotted with dried blood.

"How's Reiner?" Bertolt winced. He’d been dreading that question.

"He's… coherent, mostly. But sometimes it's like I look away for a second and he's just… gone. Replaced." Annie frowned and for the first time since they'd settled in to wait, she met his gaze.

"Can we trust him?" The tall boy considered for a moment, and saw his friend with something different behind his eyes.

_Happiness, and clarity; a willful ignorance._ He decided the truth was the best policy. They had lied enough in the last five years without starting to do it to each other.

"I don't really know. But we can't leave him. No matter who he thinks he is, he's a warrior." She nodded, though he could tell her worries were far from resolved.

"We'll have to watch him. If he loses control when he's shifted…" Bertolt nodded, and the silence returned. Of the three of them, Reiner had the least exploitable weaknesses. With the state she was in, Annie wouldn't be able to restrain him, not reliably anyway.

A sharp rap at the door preempted another empty silence and Annie's fingers curled around her knife. Bertolt stood quietly, eyes narrowed.

"It's me. I've got him. Let's go." He immediately relaxed at the sound of his friend's voice, uncoiling the fists he hadn't even realized he'd made. Annie stood, though he noticed that her fingers stayed just as tight around her crystalized weapon. The door opened and the sight of Reiner, holding a limp Eren over his shoulder, greeted them. Annie smirked at that, and Bertolt had to agree; proud Eren Jaeger being carried like a sack of potatoes was pretty funny.

It wasn’t a moment later that her momentary good humor vanished like a drop of water on a hot day, and he was left to wonder what thought had soured her so quickly as he gathered her up and began the journey out of town.

**0(O)0**

Eren woke for what felt like the third time in as many hours, though he knew his body was lying to him. He could hear the sound of maneuver gear pulling and firing, feel the rush of air flying past, the pressure of strong arms holding him tightly.

He could feel the bindings digging into his ankles and wrists, taste the cloth between his teeth. His eyes snapped open and for the second time, he came face to face with Reiner.

He didn't particularly think about his next action; in the haze of waking up from being knocked out, having already spent most of the past few days asleep in the first place, he was understandably illogical, otherwise he might have recognized the giant wall they were ascending, as well as the enormous drop that awaited him if he were to be let go of. Had he noticed these things, he might have stayed still and waited to challenge his traitorous friend until he was on solid ground.

Unfortunately for everyone involved, he didn't. Instead, while doing his best to yell something regarding treason and painful revenge around the rather thick gag in his mouth, he sat up in Reiner's arms and head-butted him squarely in the nose, well before the other boy could have hoped to respond or react to either action.

The blonde promptly reeled back, which, what with them being in midair and supported by only two wires, did not go over well. As it was, he barely avoided a backflip. Regardless of that, Eren's wriggling sent him right over the side of Reiner's arm and toward the cold, hard, unforgiving ground below.

After the millisecond it took him to see the expanse of hard earth before him, and feel the inexorable tug of gravity, Eren screamed. Even through the gag, it was loud, and it spiked into a strangled wail when he felt a sharp, stabbing pain in his thigh, and was yanked to a very abrupt, very uncomfortable halt. Through the wind and blood rushing in his ears, he thought he heard yelling in what might have been an upward direction.

In the meantime, as he felt the dim agony of the barbs in his leg pulling him up, he stared blankly down at the ground and contemplated mortality.


	5. Chapter 5

The scream might have made Annie laugh in any other time or place. Eren, for all the maturing he’d done, was a proud person, and she’d taken no small amount of amusement from their spars. What he’d just let out was about as far from his masculine, heroic ideal as possible, a sound of utter terror. He’d lost before, repeatedly, but he’d always gotten back up. Now he was just hanging there, awaiting his fate. Even if she thought she were capable of laughing at the moment, he didn’t deserve the tease, and she didn’t deserve the familiarity that came with it.

Of course, the practical results of the outcry were more prominent. Annie tore her eyes away from the boy's latest near-death experience and looked up the wall. She could hear raised voices, probably patrolling Garrison soldiers. _'Shit.'_

"We need to distract them long enough for Reiner to get Eren up the wall." Bertolt nodded and fired an anchor to the top of the battlement. The wind rushed through her hair and across her face, and for a strange second, Annie almost felt clean, despite the blood on her face and the bullet still working its way out of her torso, which was incidentally making it rather uncomfortable to move.

They cleared the lip of the structure smoothly enough and he set her on her feet. The rays of the rising sun met her skin and she almost moaned; it felt as though she had been sitting in the dark for the last year.

Even so, she didn’t have time to enjoy the moment. Just as she'd suspected, a group of figures were silhouetted against the first rays of the rising sun, wearing what could only be maneuver gear. She gripped her knife and set her face. Just as before, she remembered the best strategy to employ when outgunned and incapable of running.

"Hey! You two!" Before too long, they’d arrived, and Annie managed to get a good look at them. It was a group of three, two men and one woman. None of them looked especially strong, or sizeable, but for the moment they held the advantage in weapons and numbers.

She beat back a rogue instinct screaming for her to either fight or run already. _‘Tread carefully. Feel out the situation.’_ Normally, she did not have to remind herself of these things. The fact that she did was not a good sign.

            She moved the knife behind her with what an actor might have called a stage turn, keeping her eyes locked with the taller man in the lead. His hair was cut short, a sort of light brown verging on something that could be mistaken for blonde. There was nothing especially interesting about his features. He looked about their age. _‘Not too far out of training, then; a year or two at most.’_

            “What are you two doing up here?” His eyes were narrowed in unveiled suspicion and his blades were loaded, as were those of his companions, though they hadn’t spoken as of yet, and were directing as much attention toward the speaker as they were toward her.

 _‘Followers. If I can neutralize him, they’ll fall apart.’_ She was about to move, but Bertolt’s hand came down on her shoulder, and once again, she reigned in the knee-jerk reaction to just move already.

“I’m from the Scouts. She’s with me.” Her fingers flicked the knife into a more serviceable position for throwing; she would have to be quick. Maybe wait for them to get closer.

            “I can see that, but it doesn’t answer my question: what are you doing here?” Bertolt was starting to flounder; she could feel it in the tightening of his grip on her shoulder. Frowning, she brushed off his hand and took a small but firm step forward, hiding the blade of her weapon as best she could with just her arm.

“What we’re doing is none of your business. We’ve got orders from our commander to keep a lookout here.” The statement was paper-thin and she knew it, but as Eren had pointed out to her on more than one occasion, she sucked at lying. Her exhaustion wasn’t helping either; if anything she’d escalated the situation. The anger on the leader’s face became cold, his lips pursed and his eyes narrowed.

            “You know, you Scouts aren’t exactly on the right ground to be acting so high and mighty. You let two monsters loose on a bunch of civilians. So you’ll excuse me if I don’t appreciate being told to let one of you pass with a barely dressed girl who looks like she just massacred the contents a goddamn sty.” His swords had risen along with his voice, and though they lacked the expression, his followers were no less prepared for violence.

            They weren’t advancing, but their leader was clearly done listening, and Annie was done stalling. Her arm shot out and crystal flew through his jacket and into his chest.

 

**0(O)0**

 

            Eren was fairly certain in that moment that he hated everything and everyone in existence. Well, mostly Reiner, but all things considered the world at large wasn’t doing him any favors, so why not share the rage?

            His anger stemmed mostly from the fact that Reiner, yet another person he’d trusted and even looked up to, was most definitely a traitor and part of the reason for the horror that had been most of his short life. If the tall, dark figure he’d seen moving up the wall was any indication, Bertolt was also involved. It didn’t take a genius like Armin to put this particular set of twos together.

            So even as he was painfully winched up to the blonde, who happened to be the only thing between Eren and a quick, squishy end, he found it hard not to attempt to break his bonds and take his captor down with him. Thankfully, almost dying had woken him up rather quickly and he was thinking just logically enough to realize two important things: he was not strong enough to get free, and as he continued to contemplate his situation, he couldn’t feel his key around his neck.

            He locked eyes with the blonde above him. _‘Oh you fucking bastards didn’t.’_

            “Eren, you realize that if you try to pull something like that again, we’re both dead and it will all have been for nothing. Not just this, but _everything_ we’ve had to do.” He wanted to curse him and his bullshit excuses. He wanted to rip off that sad, resigned face, and throw it onto a raging bonfire with the rest of the trash.

            But what good would that do? What good did blind anger do him or anyone else when he couldn’t hope to fight or even really move?

_‘Let them get you somewhere they feel safe. They don’t want to kill you. Soon, they’ll drop their guard, and then, their throats will weep crimson.’_

            It was a voice unlike he’d ever heard, layered and strange; an amalgam of everyone he had known, every emotion he had felt. He remembered his strange dream, the smooth sense of control and power that had surrounded him. With wide eyes, he nodded and Reiner gathered him up in his arms. The large boy tugged his anchor out of Eren’s leg with a sickening **squelch** and he almost let out another cry of pain. Barely a second later they were flying up the wall toward the light of the dawn and the sounds of battle.

            The green-eyed boy breathed as deeply as the gag allowed and collected his mind. He took his anger, his fear, his confusion and sadness, and held it in the palm of his consciousness. These things drove him, but at that moment, they were holding him back.

He was no actor, but if this were going to work, he’d have to learn fast. He’d have to…

They came over the edge and the sight before him stopped all thoughts of acting in their tracks.

 

**0(O)0**

 

            Bertolt did not enjoy fighting. Violence, in and of itself, was not something he had ever taken pleasure in, not like Annie, or even Reiner. He didn’t derive anything from proving that he was better than anyone else. But none of that mattered, because damn if he wasn’t good at it anyway.

            But he wasn’t Annie. For all his technical mastery, hers was a skill bred from a life offered up to victory like a sacrificial lamb. For all his devotion, he’d never exemplified the single-minded devotion of a warrior, not like his friends had.

            Or at least, like they’d seemed to.

He parried a blade as it swung for his torso, saw the wide, terrified, enraged eyes of his opponent, and felt that same twinge of empathy he so often wished he could get rid of. Another blow bounced off of his swords and the soldier abruptly found that he was inside her guard.

Even as he brought the handle of his maneuver gear around into the side of her torso, he felt regret. Even as he capitalized on the advantage and threw a strong jab into her face, he winced internally. He had hurt another person, brought pain to the life of someone only doing her job.

He hated it. Hated every moment of it, even as adrenaline-laden blood pumped heavily through his body, even as hers began to leak from her newly broken nose. She was completely open. With a last hint of remorse, he slammed the hilt of his sword into the side of her head. She crumpled like an unstrung puppet.

He sheathed his sword and turned to find Annie straddling the other remaining combatant, with her fingers wrapped around his throat. Her eyes were wide and manic behind her bangs, as though her own victory were something terrifying. The man’s eyes had bugged out as he clutched uselessly at her arms, attempting to dislodge her somehow. But his strength was already failing, and as Bertolt watched, his eyes drifted shut. Her hold didn’t loosen.

A muffled yell came from the right and Eren and Reiner shot over the wall. The bound boy’s eyes were wide as he stared in horrified awe at the other man in a small puddle of his own blood, at the girl choking the life out of another person before him. Her eyes shot to Eren, then back to the man, and she stumbled away as though she’d been stung, regaining her feet and holding one quivering hand with the other.

“I… I just…” Bertolt tried to put a steadying hand on her shoulder, but she whirled on him, jumping back like a sluggishly startled animal. He sighed.

“Come on, we have to move. They won’t stay down for long. The Scouting Legion will be after us soon.” She nodded, and her hands settled. Her face returned to its usual apathy with a small amount of visible effort and she casually walked over to grab her knife. She didn’t speak, instead giving a small nod. The tall boy gathered her up in his arms and he and Reiner jumped from the edge of Wall Sina, on their way to Wall Rose.

            Finally, after five years of forced exile, they were on their way home.

 

**0(O)0**

 

           

“They found the bodies at the daybreak shift change. Three of her chains were cut and the only remaining manacle was empty. Cadets Braun and Hoover are missing, as well as Eren. I think you can make the conclusions yourself.”

Hanji looked worriedly at Erwin, as the larger man stared down at his desk. His fingers were tightly gripped in front of his face, obscuring anything more of his expression. He’d been silent for almost a minute now. Mike was off to the side, looking at the floor. Levi was doing much the same on the other side of the room.

“How many dead?” Hanji frowned in that strange, detached way of hers.

“The three guards at her cell, at least that we’ve seen. We probably would have found any others by now.”

            Erwin’s voice somehow managed to convey strength and weariness all at once. “The MP’s will come for us now. They weren’t happy when we managed to capture the Female Type and this sort of failure is exactly the sort of excuse they needed to shut us down.”

With a visible effort, he brought his hands down to the table and looked Levi directly in the eye. If his calm expression had wavered for even a second, there was no trace now. His tone was even and controlled. “Send word to Pixis. Tell him to be on the lookout for people attempting to cross out of Wall Rose. Hanji, step up the interrogation of our other guest. Mike, organize three teams on horseback and scour the immediate surroundings of the district. I don’t expect you’ll find anything, but we can’t completely rule out the possibility.”

He nodded. “We don’t have the time we once thought we did. I’ll focus on reinforcing our position here. That is all, you’re dismissed.” As one, they saluted then left the room. With a sigh, Erwin rested his face in his hands. Everything had just gone from complicated to downright calamitous.


	6. Damaged Voyagers

            “I’m telling you, we can’t risk shifting out here. These trees aren’t even close to tall enough. Even if we contained it as much as possible, there’s no way someone wouldn’t notice!” Annie sighed, meeting Reiner’s exasperation effortlessly, though her voice was slightly more controlled, if raspy from lack of use.

“So what, we haul Eren all the way to the Wall on foot? We can’t keep him tied up like this forever. Besides, they’ll have found the bodies by now. If we take too long, we’ll end up with an army waiting for us.”

Eren’s anger at being discussed as though he weren’t there quickly turned to horror at the casual mention of bodies, and he almost yelled something, but then remembered he was gagged. For a moment, he thought he saw a queasy grimace cross Bertolt’s features, but it was gone too fast to be sure.

It made him angry. The traitors’ hawk-like watchfulness made him angry. The tree root angled just right to dig into his spine made him angry. _Everything_ about this situation was conspiring to enrage him, and that just made him angrier again, because he wasn’t used to dealing with the emotion when he _couldn’t fucking move!_

“If that’s true they’ll have already sent out search parties. We can’t afford to attract attention.” The two blondes had been arguing the point for a few minutes already. Eren supposed he should have been more interested than he was, but in his current position, he was basically helpless to sway them. Plus, if he was honest with himself, he didn’t know any better than they did which option was the better one.

“We’ll attract a whole lot more than attention if we have to smash through the whole southern division of the Garrison.” It was the most Eren had ever seen Annie talk in one sitting, though he supposed he’d never seen her argue with this sort of adamancy before. She seemed just the slightest bit… He wasn’t quite sure what to call it, but loosened was close enough to fit.

She was in even worse shape than when he’d visited her cell. Her limbs had clearly been taken at some point and the tattered remains of her hoodie and pants could not have been mistaken for their previous white. Her eyes had been shadowed by heavy bangs earlier, but the moment they’d gotten into the cover of the forest, she’d taken her strange knife and chopped the offending hair off, along with a good bit of the rest. It was sloppy and barely reached her earlobes; not a flattering look by any stretch of the imagination, but it meant she could actually see without squinting. Without a curtain of darkness to gleam through, her eyes looked less demonic and more tired.

Bertolt and Reiner’s uniforms on the other hand, were both completely intact and practically spotless before Eren’s enraged eyes; a fact that irked him on a certain level, although mostly it was just that they had the audacity to still be wearing them in the first place. He was doing his best to follow his… Titan’s advice, and tamp down on his emotions. _‘God, that sounds fucking weird.’_

“Look, we’re wasting time talking about this. We can make good time with the maneuver gear as long as we’re in the forest. We’ll consider our options once we’ve gotten through, alright?” Annie glared at him for a second, but finally nodded.

“Fine. Grab him and let’s go.” Reiner nodded and walked over to Eren, scooping him up with the usual apologetic smile that made the smaller teenager want to throw up all over his infuriatingly white shirt, and strangle him with it. A second later, he and Bertolt were shooting through the trees.

 

**0(O)0**

 

            “What do you mean he’s gone?” Mikasa’s expression was pure restrained rage; the kind of glare that would have cowed any normal person into apologies and wet pants. Captain Levi was not a normal person.

            “I _mean_ he’s gone. If we’re right, Braun and Hoover grabbed him and the Female Type, then flew off into the fucking sunrise.” Really, the remarkable thing about the interaction was that the man was just as angry as his subordinate, though Armin noticed he was far better at controlling it. His hands weren’t shaking like Mikasas’, and his eyes were only the smallest bit narrowed. Really, it was the slight tension in his jaw that gave away his true mindset, and he only saw that because he’d been studying the man’s expressions recently. Levi was a remarkably difficult person to read.

            “Then why are we still here? We need to go after them!” He shook his head, arms crossed. Armin was reminded briefly of the time Mikasa had tossed Reiner several meters into Eren and Annie during a spar. Even having seen the man in action, it was still strange to see someone shorter than he standing unaffected and impassive before the monstrous strength that was Mikasa Ackerman, and injured as well.

“We already have teams searching out from the city, but the chances of them finding anything are negligible. We’ll be going double-time to Wall Rose by horse. The Garrison has to be warned. With any luck we’ll be able to cut them off there and retake the whole group.”

            _‘That’s barely a plan at all…’_ Armin frowned, trying to detect any hint of subterfuge in his superior. He didn’t find any, but in the end, all that meant was that something bigger was being held back, quite possibly from the very top. It didn’t sit right with him, no matter how much he understood the reasoning. Recent events had nurtured his already healthy distrust for authority.

“So we’re assuming that Reiner and Bertolt are the Armored and Colossal Titans, then?” Levi nodded.

“Yeah, that seems to be the consensus. You think differently?” Armin shook his head.

“No, sir. I just wanted to be sure.”

            “We barely managed to corner Annie when she _wasn’t_ actively avoiding us. What makes you think _three_ enemies like that will be so easy to capture and detain?” Levi’s eyes narrowed, his lips pursed just the slightest bit thinner as he met Mikasa’s gaze.

            “They won’t. But that doesn’t mean we can afford to let them go so easily. Would you rather we do nothing?” And Armin could see it, where before he hadn’t seen anything: the briefest downward flicker of his eyes, the tightness of his brow. _‘He doesn’t know any more than we do, and what’s more he’s still all but useless. He’s as angry with himself as with everything else.’_

            “At the very least we know they’re transporting a less-than-willing prisoner, and they only have two sets of gear with no way to refuel. The rest of the squad has already been informed. We’re moving out in an hour. Be ready and at the gate by then.” Without another word, he turned sharply on his good leg and vacated the room at a nonchalantly fast pace, leaving the door swinging on its hinges as he went. Mikasa’s glare hadn’t even begun to dissipate as he rounded the bend and disappeared from sight.

            “Tch.” She shook her head and schooled her features, though Armin noticed her teeth were still gritted behind her lips. “Come on, we don’t have a lot of time to get ready.” He nodded, and followed her out of the door, closing it carefully behind them. His friend was grumbling almost imperceptibly, but he wasn’t especially listening anymore; his faculties were preoccupied. _‘What could the Commander be planning this time?’_

 

**0(O)0**

 

The visions let him go, and he sits up, panting, sweaty, and terrified. The room is too small. He needs air, he needs water, he needs _something_ , anything that will make him feel clean, normal! The sheets are soaked and the room is filled with the stale scents of sweat and piss.

The world is too small down here, too lowly. Up there, the obliterated house and the charred bodies had looked so small, the mountains manageable. He hates himself for thinking it, but some small part of him wishes everything could have stayed that way.

“Hello?” There’s no knock at the door and the voice is quiet, but he jumps anyway, his natural nervousness only heightened by the lingering shadows of his nightmare and the real shadows on the wall. He thinks it must be the middle of the night and a quick look out his window confirms the suspicion. “Are you okay? I heard yelling.” The words are concerned, gentle even. He looks down at himself and disgustedly moves to get out of the bed, but his legs are tangled in the sheets, and he tumbles off of the straw mattress awkwardly. His knee hits the wooden floor and he yelps. The carved door clicks and swings inward.

Bertolt had only met the other boy the day before, when the lady in black took him to his new home. His pale blonde mop of hair had gleamed in the sun as he extended an open hand and said an enthusiastic greeting. He didn’t deserve that kind of friendliness, but he remembered enough of his manners to say a formal, detached hello. The proffered hand, he had left until it was finally retracted. The boy had frowned, but not commented, and now, as this stranger’s gaze focuses on the pitiful situation he has stumbled into, Bertolt wishes he could remember the name he had been offered.

“You aren’t okay, are you?”

Bertolt shakes his head no. “The room is too small.” The blonde nods as though this makes perfect sense and walks over. For the second time since they’ve met, he offers an open hand. Even as the seconds stretch into what feels like a minute, becoming awkward, he stubbornly keeps it there, and finally, Bertolt takes it, rising to his own two feet. Despite the smell and the fact that they’ve barely known each other for a day, if even that, the smile returns, a bit subdued, but no less welcoming.

“Come on, I’ll get you some water to wash up with. My room’s a bit bigger, so you can probably sleep there tonight.”

And he does just that, brushing aside every fear Bertolt can bring himself to voice. They go outside to the shed and with some effort; the other boy manages to pull a small, but heavy-looking tub out to the pump. Is he really only six like him, to be moving such a thing? He hands Bertolt a bar of soap and after some vigorous scrubbing, he almost feels clean again, almost feels normal. Next come the towel and some new clothes, all gifted with that same understanding quirk of the lips.

He’s too much of a coward to ask as they fall back asleep, but the next day, as his new guardians are informed of the previous night’s happenings, the kind woman placing a worried hand over her swollen belly, he overhears it and takes care to remember.

Reiner Braun. His friend’s name is Reiner Braun.

 

**0(O)0**

 

            “Hoy, Bertolt!” The tall boy startled slightly at the sound of Reiner’s voice, very nearly losing his balance. The hours of quiet wind and passing miles had bled together, and this sudden interruption in the rhythm of falling and catching caught the tall boy off guard. With a last swing, the Bertolt’s boots rushed over a bush and came to a graceful landing on the soft ground. Annie stirred in his arms, eyelids tightening ever so slightly before she settled again. Before he had a chance to turn, Reiner dropped onto the mossy understory with a muffled **thump** , cradling Eren just as tentatively as ever.

            Bertolt’s first thoughts, as ever, were of everything that could have gone wrong. His eyes drifted to the burden in his arms before he managed to pull his mind out of panic and focus. “You spotted Scouts?”

Reiner’s face wasn’t grave, but it was straight as a board, which only made Bertolt less prepared for his explanation. “No, I’m pretty sure Eren needs to take a piss.” Bertolt’s still-rushing thoughts came to a screeching halt as he slowly processed what he’d just heard

            _‘Oh… Right. Of course.’_ The tension among the conscious members of the group was just as forceful as ever, but for a moment, Bertolt almost laughed at the sheer normalcy of such a thing.

            They were going home after five years, Annie had been shot earlier that day escaping from an underground dungeon, Reiner had been insane for the better part of the last three years, and Eren needed to take a piss. _‘Ridiculous.’_

            “Now?” Reiner glanced askance at the boy and received an affirmative sort of murder for his trouble.

“I’d say so.” Bertolt shook his head in understated wonderment and turned to lay Annie down against a tree.

“Fine, but keep his limbs bound.” Reiner nodded, and Bertolt could tell, glancing over his shoulder at the tightness of his eyes, that he knew full well just how ridiculous it all felt, and chose to hold it in.

            _‘What’s so funny, Springer? I’m sure the titans will take extra special care of that smiling face when they’re nibbling on your fucking entrails!’_ The memory jumped to the forefront, just as unbidden as the code he’d memorized as a child. Reiner never would have hidden his thoughts before. He would have laughed. As quickly as the mirth came, it left, and Bertolt was alone again, because even when he was a warrior, his friend was a soldier.


	7. A Whole in the Woods

            The full moon was a dazzling silver orb above, shining brightly on the dirt, grass, and wooden houses that made up the small village of Ragako. He could feel the reflected sunlight shining down upon him, weaker than it might have been in the daytime, but nonetheless exquisite. The wind whistled through the trees and across his shaggy fur. He felt so magnificently _alive_.

_‘This village is quite small; more like a few dozen houses thrown together, really. Judging by the wear and tear, these people have been living here for at least two or three generations. I wonder how long they would have remained genetically viable before the necessary inbreeding became irreparable?’_ He stepped casually through the small settlement, feet causing barely a tremor despite his enormous size. _‘Strange. There are no lights, nobody out to enjoy the moon, not even watchmen. Is there some sort of curfew?’_

            A small sound caught his attention, and he looked down. Not two meters from his foot was a small child; no older than seven if he were to guess. He was holding a small stick in a two-handed vice, pointed up as though to ward off the horror before him. The boy’s whimpering was what had caught his attention. Normally such a person sneaking up on him would have been impossible. _‘I am being far too complacent. But perhaps…’_

            Being exceedingly careful not to accidentally crush the tiny, shivering body before him, he went down on a huge, hairy knee and reached out a long, spindly arm. His finger came to rest no more than a centimeter from the child, dwarfing him. He had always heard that small children wailed when they were upset. This one showed surprising restraint, despite the tears flowing freely down his cheeks.

            “Hello. Aren’t you an interesting little insect?” The child’s whimper became louder, and the beastly monster looming over him grinned. “Well, I suppose even the most interesting things are often expendable. Time for you to sleep, little bug.”

            He closed his eyes, preparing to release the gas he had stored in his lungs. It would take no more than a minute to cover the village. But even as he swelled his chest to exhale the payload, he felt something on the edge of his perception. Something powerful, and utterly removed from anything he had felt for more than five years.

_‘Alive, definitely; and not just living, but awake… Problematic.’_ He would know that feeling anywhere, as familiar as his own identity: the equal and opposite texture of his other half. It was approaching his vicinity rapidly; at its current speed, it would probably pass him in the next fifteen minutes. With a bit of concentration, he sharpened his focus, and picked out the other three traveling with it. _‘Ah, then they survived. Troublesome, but easily rectified.’_

            He turned his gaze back to the boy trembling before him, now starting to wail in earnest. He could hear an older female voice yelling into the night for quiet. “Hm, perhaps you aren’t so interesting as I had thought. No matter. I have places to be. Still, no reason to leave my original purpose unfulfilled.” Without another moment’s notice, he breathed out heavily, jettisoning a large cloud of dark pink gas. The boy’s crying turned to violent coughs as the substance flooded his lungs.

            “Now then, to business.” The shaggy titan rose to his full height and turned in the direction of his quarry. Judging by the strength, or rather the weakness of the signal, none of them were in titan form. _‘They must be riding horses. Their speed makes no sense otherwise.’_

He spared a glance for the boy behind him as flesh, bone, and steam exploded outward from the small body, as well as from several of the surrounding houses. The first moans and growls of mindless titans could be heard, as well as confused and terrified cries. Without another look, he turned and began jogging unhurriedly to intercept the three young shifters and their prize. There was no point wasting energy when his goal was so willing to come to him.

**0(O)0**

 

“How much longer do you expect me to wait?” Eren sat cross-legged on the cold ground. As ever, they were next to the ruins of his destroyed house. He was glowering, though of course that was nothing new either.

            The titan dream thing was just as condescending and malicious as ever, which was very strange to hear considering the face it was wearing. It had tried out Levi a few nights before, but then it had smiled, and apparently Eren’s hysterical laughter had warned it away from that particular form. The visage it had selected instead was no less problematic, but in a very different manner.

            “Just a little longer. Remember, they still outnumber us, and they have you utterly outclassed in experience. We have to wait until they are distracted, then we can kill them.” The cold, logical words sounded strange in the sweet voice of Carla Yeager, which only added to the melting pot of confusing emotions he felt at seeing her in the first place. Worse yet, she was smiling, that small, understanding upturning of lips that she used when explaining something simple to her children. Something in Eren yearned to forget how fake she was, that this thing was not his mother. It was small, but there nonetheless. He crushed it mercilessly, and returned to his anger.

            “You’ve been saying that for over a day now.” His tone was just as angry and impatient as ever, worse even. His situation had not put him in a good mood, and his lack of action was not helping. “Are we going to wait until we’re over Wall Maria and there’s no hope of assistance? We can’t just sit around letting Reiner carry us forever!” The smile did not waiver in the slightest.

            “Even so, we must exercise caution. There is more at stake than…” The thing’s expression went momentarily blank before becoming deadly serious. “Eren, you need to wake up now. Wake up and transform.”

            He blinked, surprised at the sudden turn in the conversation. “What happened?” The thing’s eyes were wide; it almost looked afraid, or maybe just excited.

            “We may have an opening. That, or we’re both about to die. Now do as I say!” Having heard the cryptic statement, Eren was left with no more understanding than he had started with. In fact, he was now more confused than ever.

            “Dammit, stop speaking in riddles and give me straight answer! What’s going on?” But he felt the world beginning to fade, his mother’s face blurring into formless nothing like ink on wet paper, and the cold ground dissolving beneath him. “God dammit!”

 

**0(O)0**

 

            Reiner wasn’t completely sure how everything had gone to shit. Well, actually he was; obviously he had been there to see it. But even now, thinking on the ‘how’ of the situation, the ‘why’ remained entirely beyond him.

            They had been making relatively good time through the moonlit forest. Eren and Annie had been asleep for a good few hours, and Reiner desperately wished he could join them. He had never experienced an activity quite so simultaneously monotonous and involved as this prolonged tree swinging. They were slowly but surely nearing the end of their replacement tanks of gas, even considering how careful they were being to conserve it, and worse yet, the edge of the forest wasn’t yet in sight. Soon enough, they would have had to go forward on foot or shift someone to stay ahead of pursuit.

            “Reiner, look out!”

            Then out of the darkness of his peripheral vision, a strangely familiar hand had appeared and tried to slap him out of the air. He’d avoided it of course but still, the shock very nearly sent him careening into a tree trunk. He’d righted himself quickly, only to see the same hand moving faster than before, once more toward him.

            Now here he was, floating in a moment of equilibrium between anchor points with Eren in his arms, wondering how the hell Martin’s titan had gotten inside Wall Rose, why he was trying to kill them, and where the hell Bertolt and Annie had disappeared to.

            Thinking fast, he swung behind a large tree, and used it as cover to descend at a swift but not dangerous speed to the ground without risking the titan grabbing at his wires. If there was one thing Annie had proven during the expedition, it was that maneuver gear against shifters was a bad idea.

Taking refuge behind the tree, he laid Eren against the trunk and examined his severely limited options. His first thought was that Martin was somehow a traitor, in which case, trying to kill him as a human would be a remarkably bad idea. It was a hard concept to wrap his head around.

_‘Has he gone mindless? Can we even do that?’_ With Eren somewhat out of the line of fire, and supposing that Martin _had_ somehow gone feral, he could try to kill the titan with his maneuver gear. Whether he should, was a completely separate question. Even for someone like him, who had graduated second only to a person who barely qualified as physically human, trying to take out an aberrant alone was a bad, last ditch effort sort of idea.

Maybe if Bertolt were there to run interference, he would have tried, but Reiner didn’t know where his best friend had gone, and he _did_ know that the taller boy would be holding their still-recovering friend’s safety paramount. With that in mind, he decided his course of action.

            He would have to transform. He had been awake for a little over a full day now, and most of that had been spent in the shade, but regardless of that handicap, he couldn’t just let the situation continue. Too much was at stake.

Once he shifted, he could get the others out of the forest and to the Wall, hopefully with enough gas to scale Wall Maria once they got there. Despite his earlier trepidation, here in the middle of nowhere, shifting seemed the only sensible course of action. He focused on his goal.

_‘I need to stop Martin’s titan and get my friends to the Wall.’_ With noticeably more mental exertion than usually necessary, he prepared himself for a controlled transformation. It wouldn’t do to kill Eren in the process.

 

**0(O)0**

 

            Annie awoke into a swiftly escalating chaos. If the shout and sudden change in direction hadn’t shaken her from slumber, the flash of light and explosive sound of Reiner’s shift certainly had.

            Bertolt very nearly dropped her as she tried to sit up in his arms. “Annie, settle down.” He sounded strained, abrupt almost. If Bertolt was being rude, the situation was pretty clearly bad.

            “What’s happening?” He shifted his weight, shot a new grapple, and they circled the trunk of a large tree, swinging back the way they had come.

            “Not sure. It looked like Martin tried to kill Reiner.” Annie stared at him for a moment, searching for any sign that he was joking. Sure, it would have been completely out of character, but what he was saying was just as ridiculous. The boy frowned awkwardly. “I’m serious, Annie.”

            “How, though?” The boy restrained the urge to shrug.

            “No idea.” They came to a stop on the ground and he tipped her onto her feet. “Stay here, I have to help Reiner.” Annie grabbed his arm.

            “I can help.” The sudden movement brought on a wave of vertigo, and her grip loosened. He sheathed a controller and gently took her by the wrist, removing her hand.

            “Annie. Please.” And for all that he was already sweating bullets, his voice quivering, she could see the determination in the set of his jaw, the way his gaze did not waver in the slightest. His hand was steady around hers.

            “Alright. Go.” He nodded and zipped off into the trees. Annie seriously considered punching the closest tree, but after a few seconds thought better of it, and sat down against it to wait.

            _‘Fuck.’_

 

**0(O)0**

            Eren woke up and very nearly died.

            A giant mass of red and light brown came down no more than half a meter from him, and the impact sent him flying off to the side like a ragdoll. He yelled in surprise, though it would have been hard for anyone else to hear over what sounded like a yelling titan, and the fact that he not only still had a gag shoved between his teeth, but also was now facedown in the dirt.

            He managed to wriggle onto his back, and leveraged his admittedly remarkable abdominal strength and some more wriggling to get into a sitting position. What he saw made no sense.

            He recognized the armored titan on sight, although there were some marked differences, most notably that the right side of its face looking as though someone had taken a sledgehammer to it. With that in mind, he turned his attention to Reiner’s opponent.

            It was enormous, taller than anything short of the Colossal that Eren had seen. Most of its body was covered in hair, and its arms were long and spindly, strangely out of proportion with the rest of it. Come to think of it, its head was a bit too small as well. Of course, though its appearance was strange, the truly interesting thing was that it was kicking Reiner’s ass.

            Even as Eren looked on, it neatly sidestepped a fist roughly the size of its skull, and grabbed the arm as it passed. Its grip crushed Reiner’s armor like old roofing tiles underfoot. He stumbled, probably from shock, and a knee was cordially introduced to his now very vulnerable guts.

_**‘KILL IT! KILL IT NOW!’**_ The demand hit Eren’s mind like an exploding gas tank to the face, so powerful that he could feel his hands straining against the restraints around his wrists before he even had a chance to think.

            _‘It’s killing Reiner, what’s the problem?’_ The thing didn’t respond immediately, but Eren didn’t really have time to think on it.

_‘You honestly believe that thing is here for him, for any of them? It will kill both of us if we don’t do something! Now is the best time to attack, while all of our enemies are off balance! Now bite something, and transform already!’_ Eren thought for a second. He tried to, but it was almost like a compulsion had taken him. Fear and anger had trickled into his mind from somewhere, and they were quickly drowning out everything else.

            He had of course been chewing on his gag for the past day or so; it was close to snapping anyway. Fueled by the built up frustration and rage of the last day, he bit down as hard as he could on the bandages in his mouth, and shredded right through them to his tongue.

            Orange light screamed down through the moonlit treetops and the beastly Titan stopped beating Reiner for a moment to shield its eyes from the unrestrained transformation. A deafening roar shook the trees.

            The hairy thing didn’t even have time to look surprised before a fist connected with its face.


	8. Eraserfist

         

            Karina opened her eyes and stared up at the wooden planks of the ceiling, momentarily petrified in a rictus of wide-eyed shock. She did not remember ever having experienced what she had felt only seconds before, but she easily recognized its significance, and it scared her. She had known that the moment of contact would be… intense. She had been told so quite plainly. But the word did not even come close to expressing the enormity of the feeling that barely a moment earlier had very nearly wiped everything away.

            “You felt it as well.” Jeremy looked down at her on the bed, his expression just as perturbed as ever. It was not a question he had asked, but she responded with a nod anyway.

            “He has made contact, then.” She nodded again, throwing off her blankets and brushing her hair out of her eyes as she carefully slid her body around, and got to her feet. She gripped the silver chain around her neck and looked him in the eye, not bothering to hide her fear. He would have known anyway.

            “Yes.” Some small cowardly part of her whispered of all the wrongs committed to reach this point. She realized now that she had never before truly understood the incredible scale on which their cause existed, and in the shadow of that enormity, a pinprick of doubt pushed itself into existence.

            She ignored it. “Go and gather the council. We need to assure them this was their idea.” He nodded, but instead of leaving, pulled her into an embrace. She felt the slight pressure on the swell of her belly for a moment before he let her go. His hands came to rest gently on her shoulders, and he looked up into her eyes.

            “Everything will be fine.” He held her gaze for a second to make sure she got the message, then turned and left. She watched him go, and her hand returned to the tarnished silver of her chain again.

For a moment, everything that she was had been overshadowed, outshone. Gone.

Such power, uncontrolled as it was… The very thought was terrifying.

            She breathed out, and willed the fear to some distant corner of her mind. _‘Everything will be fine.’_

 

**0(O)0**

 

            The first thing he felt was pain. Everything else flooded back a moment later: the parched taste of the air in his lipless mouth, the dull, stagnant heat, the hard, dry ground under his heavy body, but the pain came first and foremost, and it shaped everything to follow.

            Sound followed soon after, and that hurt as well. Something was screaming very, very loudly, with more than just its voice. Screaming, yelling? Unimportant, it hurt and it needed to stop!

Sight came next, and hearing continued to improve. It wasn’t just one thing screaming. Two things! Two things needed to die!

Something collided loudly with several other things, and he momentarily regretted his lack of eyelids, shaking his head in an attempt to relieve the itching in his eyes. Giving it up for a lost cause, he scanned the cloud for the silhouettes of his tormentors.

He pushed himself to his feet. Much of his body was in excruciating pain, but he could feel that it was slowly getting better. But the noise was only getting worse, louder, sharper. The pain had to stop!

His lidless eyes found his quarry quickly; the offending monster was moving quickly to capitalize on its advantage. Even better, it was distracted! He took a tentative, heavy step, and found that his legs could bear the strain, then charged. Running felt good, natural, as though he were made for it. His powerful footfalls kicked up even more dust as he prepared to tackle the only offender still standing!

 

**0(O)0**

 

            It was nothing great or world shattering that came over Jean in the moment of connection, and certainly not comparable to the experience of someone more attuned than him, but even so, it was strange. It was in fact strange enough, that for a moment, he was completely inattentive and very nearly slipped off of his horse at a fast trot.

He yelped, and frantically pulled himself back into the saddle, coming to a rest on the other side of a second that in his abject panic had seemed to stretch into infinity. He looked around at his squad mates and found most of them in similar situations, though thankfully nobody had actually fallen off of their mount. As they slowly managed to right themselves, the entire squad wound down from their swift pace to a halt. “What the hell was that?”

            “What’s wrong, Kirstein?” The Captain regarded his squad from the front of the procession, with a sort of flat annoyance in his eyes that Jean has learned to take as curiosity.

Sasha blinked rapidly, as though trying to clear something out of her eyes. “Jean, you felt it too?”

He nodded, frowning to himself. “Like looking into a fire for too long.”

Christa glanced at her teammates and nodded. “I felt it too. Is everyone alright?”

Mikasa looked at them all strangely, cocking a bewildered eyebrow. “I didn’t feel a thing.” Levi regarded his subordinates with a wary frown, lingering for a moment on Mikasa.

“Neither did I.”

Ymir, who had stayed quiet thus far, was staring blankly up at the sky, looking as if she’d just been told her birthday was canceled. Her reaction was contained, and definitely not verbalized, but vehement in its own disbelieving sort of way.

 _‘Now? Really?_ ’

 

**0(O)0**

 

            Bertolt flew like a prevailing wind between the leaves and limbs of the trees, not particularly caring about his gas reserves in his haste to get to Reiner. He could hear the booming crunch of enormous footfalls, and guttural roars. Last he had seen, Reiner had definitely shifted, and considering the uncontained pillar of orange destruction that had gone up a few seconds after, someone else must have done the same. The only other shifter in the area was Eren.

            This did not bode well.

Finally, he started to see glimpses of the combatants through the trees. Eren’s fist collided with Martin’s face and sent him flying.

More specifically, it sent him right into Bertolt’s swing arc, minus a jaw. Simultaneously, something washed over the young man that he couldn’t have described if he’d wanted to. For a single, crucial moment, he was completely off balance, and therefore ill equipped to deal with the situation he had just stumbled headlong into.

Martin smashed through at least four trees with a loud crunching **boom** , kicking up a massive cloud of dust and wood fragments as he went. Bertolt swerved as best he could, blinking furiously to clear his mind and eyes, and barely managed to twist out of the way of several flying branches that probably would have caved in his head at the speed he was going. Not even someone like him could survive that.

He did not, however, manage to avoid a large fragment of trunk that took him in the guts from out of nowhere. For a moment, all he felt was the peculiar, explosively painful sensation of something inside him bursting under pressure.

Then he was spinning wildly all the way down to the hard, unforgiving dirt. A couple more of his bones snapped on contact, and he let out a scream, bouncing another few yards. On instinct, his hands came down in an attempt to stop himself, only for several of his fingernails to be pulled a bit too far. He felt the stab of wrongness as they came free, the sting as dust particles invaded the bleeding openings in his fingertips.

Was he still screaming? He wasn’t sure. He could taste blood and dirt mixing on his tongue, and his eyes refused to open. As he hacked out slow, wheezing coughs, and his eyes began to drift shut, he felt the loud thuds of titanic steps and a creeping agony in his torso. The last thing he heard was the gentle admonishing of his dead mother, reminding him that blood was definitely not supposed to go on the outside.

 

**0(O)0**

 

 _‘Well. That was weird.’_ Eren didn’t remember exactly what had happened after he’d punched the furry thing, but for a moment his mind had been utterly blank, and now here he was watching it fly into a tree and smash its way through to three others before finally coming to rest, prone on the ground.

 _‘ **What are you waiting for? It isn’t dead yet! Kill it now!** ’ _Eren squinted through the debris cloud the strange titan had made, trying to figure out where it had ended up. He spent a fraction of a second cursing the parched weather that had left the forest floor so dusty.

 _‘I’m not an idiot, you know. Calm down.’_ He took a powerful step forward, kicking up another small cloud at his feet, and turning his head to see if he could hear where it was. A loud groan pulled his head to two o’clock. _‘See, he’s already down for the count. I’ll just finish him and we can- ”_ He was cut off by the abrupt sensation of something significantly heavier than himself plowing into his left side around the small of his back. For a second, he and his titan spoke with a single voice.

            _‘ **Oh god dammit!** ’_

 

**0(O)0**

 

            He didn’t know precisely how, but he was pretty sure he had just been punched in the face. It had all happened remarkably fast: one moment he was making short work of Reiner, and the next, he was flying into the trees.

            He examined his body tentatively. His left arm was broken in one or two places from collisions, but that would be fixed in short order. His missing lower jaw was distracting, but not especially necessary for the moment; he would allow it to fix itself in its own time. The rest of his frame seemed to be in remarkably good working order despite the repeated impacts.

            _‘So he has managed to find a powerful host. Interesting, if a bit problematic.’_ He blinked dust from his eyes, squinting in an attempt to find this new opponent.

            The cloud parted rather abruptly, as something enormous exploded toward him. He had a moment to realize that it was Reiner, tackling the open-mouthed titan body of his counterpart forward like some vengeful, armored missile. There was no time to think; he threw himself to the left as best he could and hoped.

 

**0(O)0**

           

            By his own sparingly rendered luck and hard-won skill, Eren managed to twist in midair, barely in time to lessen his impact with the spot the aberrant had occupied a second earlier. His right arm ended up taking the brunt of the impact, and shattered on contact with the ground.

            Reiner wasn’t so lucky. The force of the turn and the impact sent him careening off to the side, struggling to right himself, but only succeeding in smashing right into the aberrant. Rolling onto his left hand as quickly as the numerous spots of pain along his spine would allow, Eren pushed himself unsteadily to his feet. His arm was his greatest concern: it was completely gone from the mid forearm down, and what was left was mangled and twisted. He narrowed his eyes and focused for a second, trying to make it heal faster.

            Nothing happened, and he was interrupted before he could try again. _‘Let me do that. Just focus on finishing this.’_

Eren felt something akin to a shove at his concentration. He couldn’t have told you how it occurred, but he stopped thinking about his arm and turned all of his attention toward his furred adversary, which had by then thrown Reiner aside and begun scrambling to its own feet. Eren was struck momentarily by just how out-of-proportion the strange titan was. Its limbs were far too long, its torso was far too bulbous, its head was far too small, and the face on it was even less human than the norm. Everything about it looked supremely wrong.

            A rumbling growl rose from Reiner’s cracked, bleeding body, and he pushed himself to his feet, lidless eyes just as shadowy and blank looking as ever. In an instant he accelerated to a mad, roaring sprint, hands outstretched as though to tackle the monstrosity, but rather suddenly its hand was in the way, and a moment later, the Armored Titan’s face was gone, shattered and dissolved on contact. His body fell limply to the ground and the thing stomped decisively onto the back of his head. Eren watched all of this dispassionately, feeling his wounds slowly repair themselves and taking some satisfaction in how utterly demolished Reiner was. He knew from personal experience that it would take a while to regenerate that particular bit of damage.

            **‘** _Don’t let him touch you, Eren.’_

            _‘Yeah, I figured that out on my own, thanks.’_ He settled naturally into his stance, with his fist and rapidly self-repairing stump raised high before his face, his knees bent, and his feet spaced evenly. The thing seemed perfectly content to wait for him to make the first move.

            _‘Fine. Let’s test the limits of your ability, then.’_ He shuffled forward, learning from the failure of Reiner’s headlong rush. He maintained his relatively serene pace until he was within a good minimum distance, then sprung forward.

            He moved smoothly, and far faster than his adversary should have been able to with all the extra weight of his body and fur. His fist missed its face by inches, and a hand came up to swat through his arm. He retracted it and stumbled back into his stance, but not quite fast enough. The thing managed to brush the tips of his fingers, and rather abruptly, they were gone.

            It pressed its advantage, bringing its other arm forward to attack Eren’s torso on his still-handless right side. He ducked just enough to lose the skin of his cheekbone and retaliated by driving a powerful hammer-blow into the thing’s midsection. If it had taken it, the punch would have smashed through its ribcage, but it managed to move with the impact, and ended up only stumbling back a bit. It righted itself just in time to meet Eren’s follow-up. His fist went flying past once again and he was forced to jump clear of the thing’s grasping hands, rolling back to a crouch just in time to take a kick to the face.

            **_‘What are you doing?’_** Eren was pretty sure his jaw was gone, or at least severely mangled. His nose was definitely broken. He thought he might have heard something go boom off in the distance, but he couldn’t be sure. He was a bit distracted trying to get back out of the thing’s reach, which now that he was on the defensive again, was rather annoyingly long.

            _‘Fighting? What are you doing?’_ A probing hand shot forward, but the thing seemed distracted, looking narrow-eyed over his shoulder rather than at him. He dove right, hammering another powerful blow into the thing, this time lower on the torso, about where the intestines would be on anything with a real digestive system. _That_ got its attention back.

            **_‘I’m healing you, cretin. Your welcome for the arm, by the way.’_** Eren curled his newly regenerated right hand into a fist and followed up his advantage, batting away a probing arm and ramming a solid uppercut into the thing’s still-healing jaw.

            The other furred hand wasn’t far behind and it came down on Eren’s unprotected right shoulder. The arm went limp instantly, and Eren barely managed intersperse his left with the other probing hand, losing a chunk of his forearm before he managed to disengage, jumping back and glaring. A rhythmic booming sound echoed around him, blending with the rushing in his ears, and the thing whirled to look off into the forest, eyes wide. Eren didn’t let the moment go to waste. He pounced without a second thought, jumping at the thing’s exposed back and grabbing it around the midriff.

            It bucked, turning violently to dislodge him. Eren felt every bit of him pressed against it begin to erode, hissing and steaming, and he let out a burbling scream of pain. Even through the weak pain receptors of his titan body, it was excruciating, tortuous. The booming was louder now. _‘HOLD ON!’_

            And he did. For one crucial, excruciating moment he held his larger, far more dangerous enemy in a death-grip, even as his skin dissolved, and his blood hissed away.

            Something blue and crystalline whistled over his head and he saw the thing’s head go flying. His knees buckled, and the last thing he thought through the pain and encroaching darkness was that the voice he had heard was definitely not his titan’s.


End file.
